


Telling and listening

by Himeneka



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 11:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11943213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Himeneka/pseuds/Himeneka
Summary: Ed and Roy have something to tell.





	Telling and listening

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MyFandomCausesHanaji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyFandomCausesHanaji/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Lest We Forget](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11712360) by [MyFandomCausesHanaji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyFandomCausesHanaji/pseuds/MyFandomCausesHanaji). 



> This is both a gift to MyFandomCausesHanaji, as a scene that could have taken place somewhere in "Lest we forget", and my apology for procrastinating betaing said fic... 
> 
> If you don't feel like reading their works in this series, I actually think you can read this one without context - it should still make enough sense (... but it would still be better if you did read the series).

While Ed was still a bit nervous about it, Roy had convinced him they needed to add Voss to the select number of trusted friends they had told about the alternate reality they were trying to avoid. 

“You told me you trusted him - you do, don’t you?” Roy had a pointed look about him, as if checking he had all the facts. 

“Yeah, but… it’s so weird - I mean, you remember Hawkeye’s reaction? We spent the better part of a fucking day convincing her neither of us were crazy…”

“As I spent some very confusing hours convincing YOU I wasn’t that crazy either” added Roy dryly. 

Ed flushed a bit, and continued “Yeah, but you had the notes, and they were in my code, and I was inclined to trust you in the first place. What if he decides we’re insane?”

“You know he’s your friend. Friends don’t act like that, not without compelling evidence to the contrary - you’re rational-” Roy had a Look, “-mostly rational, anyway-” and Ed laughed before he could even finish.

“Alright, alright, I get it. And you’re right, in his position he sort of _needs_ to know, or he will think I’m crazy for completely different reasons anyway. Tomorrow?”

He looked, a bit imploring, at Roy.

“Tomorrow.” he sighed. 

 

Mark Voss was wondering what the hell was going on, but was still too polite to say so directly to the Führer’s face when said Führer asked to see him, if he didn’t have any other obligation, at the end of their work day, for some undefined private business - as if any previous engagement held a candle to his curiosity about what sort of secret meeting this was shaping to be. 

He joined the Führer in his office as soon as Mustang’s last meeting of the day was over, and relaxed a bit to see Edward there - he may not always be completely comfortable with his head of State in a private setting, but he trusted his friend to smooth over any potential awkwardness. There were two stacks of paper on the coffee table, one looking worn and a bit tattered, the other with neater writing, although he couldn’t read it from his seat.

“Edward. What’s going on?” he asked while Mustang tellingly brought out the liquors. “Is this just a friendly meeting? It felt a bit more formal”. 

Mustang settled in the couch at his husband’s side, but didn’t say anything, gesturing Ed to take the lead. Edward breathed in deeply, and dived in. 

“Mark.” He looked like he wanted to continue, but couldn’t find the words, and Voss hadn’t even been sure before then that Edward could have a brain-to-mouth filter - how painful could the subject be if he didn’t even know how to broach it? “It’s… Wait a sec. It’s a bit hard to find a beginning, but I’ll try.” Voss was getting markedly more concerned than when he entered, but held his silence. “You know about the list of names I gave you, so that you could pay special attention to them. You know I even made sure some of them wouldn’t stay in the military anyway, right?”

Voss acquiesced cautiously, even more puzzled, but didn’t add anything. He had more than one disagreement with Edward about the list, and had asked again about the reasons behind the exclusions less than a week ago, and if his friend finally wanted to share his reasoning, he wasn’t about to interrupt. Ed forged on. 

“You asked me, more than once, why I wanted to dismiss them, and why I felt like they might be a threat, while nothing in their files gave any clue.” Ed paused, and Voss nodded, but still didn’t say anything. “Well, we had another source of information, but it’s… Roy?”

Mustang sighed in the face of Edward’s obvious avoidance, and took up the lead. 

“Voss. What Ed’s trying to say is that close to a decade ago, I had a visitor from the future. A man appeared in my house, in the center of an alchemical array, looking like Ed would if he was in his mid-thirties and had spent his last few years in hell.” Roy’s face was grim, and Voss… Voss didn’t even know what to feel. Mostly stunned, but he stayed attentive - there was a tiny seed of elation and vertigo at finally being let in on something that enormous, and he didn’t want to miss anything. Mustang continued.

“He said he had been trying to cross time for quite a bit - he said his world had gone wrong, that all his friends had died, that we were at war with Drachma, Aerugo and Creta, that we were likely losing the war, that he didn’t even care anymore, and he wanted us to avoid the same fate. He gave us these,” he gestured at the oldest looking stack of papers in front of them, “...then he asked me to fix it. To prevent the war and the deaths and all the horrors he had to witness.” He looked pained, half-lost in memories, but went on. “He disappeared with the array shortly after. And here we are.”

Never before had a silence been so loud.

Voss cleared his voice, and glanced at Ed. “You’re sure about this.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Ed answered anyway. 

“A hundred fucking percent. These notes are in both mine and Roy’s alchemical code - it’s fucking close to impossible to forge, Mark. I know it sounds crazy, I had my doubts when Roy told me, too, but I’ve read these notes, I was convinced then, and after the past years, it’s not conviction, it’s freaking facts - there are too many instances where these were dead on. You can’t predict the future like that, I know you can’t, not unless you’ve lived it.”

The quiet of the room was barely broken by Roy pouring them glasses while Voss let himself get a bit lost in thinking. This new information… did fit, somehow. He had been baffled, sometimes, about Edward’s apparent ability to read a situation - to the best of his knowledge, his friend never was that much of a people person. But he _wouldn’t_ have guessed at time-travel as an explanation. 

He slowly voiced some of his thoughts.

“And… this list of names you gave me to check, they are people who had a hand in the war in this… previous iteration of reality? Alternate universe? How do you say?”

Ed shrugged. “Alternate future, if you want. It’s not any version of reality, now, this one erased that one, obviously.”

Out of all he may feel, Voss actually was… amused, right now. “Obviously. If you say so.” He turned to Mustang, serious again. “So … this… alternate Edward, went back in time to warn you of a coming war, then went back again to his own time? Wait, how could he go back if this reality…” he trailed off with a shiver of horror. 

Mustang quietly stated “This alternate version of Ed died in the array - time-crossing would require this type of sacrifice to satisfy equivalent exchange, I’m afraid.” He didn’t even seem to notice that he had pressed a bit closer to his husband during his retelling. 

Voss was daunted and a bit sickened by the idea, but, he realized, not really surprised - at least not by this. He swallowed, turned to Ed, and said “You know you should think about alternate solutions when being ready to die in never-seen-before alchemical arrays becomes a _habit_ , Edward, seriously, what were you thinking…”

Mustang seemed to relax a bit, while Ed looked surprised, then indignant “Hey, it’s not … Wait, you believe us?”

Voss shrugged again, and added serenely “Well, either you’re joking, in that case I’d like to see how far you’ll go, or you’re serious and crazy, in which case it’s obviously been going on for some time and your delusions are sufficiently consistent to convince all of your closest friends and family, some of whom are amongst the most brilliant minds of their generation” Flattering Edward by mentioning how good his brother was usually worked to cheer him a bit. “Or you’re both serious and not crazy, and then I’m curious. Plus, you _have_ a history of being ready to die for your loved ones without sparing a thought for yourself - I don’t think I’ll ever forget how you told me about your and your brother’s transmutation when you were kids”. Voss took a deep breath, raised his glass, and gestured at the notes with a barely restrained eagerness. 

“Now. May I?”


End file.
